The Ei8hties

The era of David Byrne, Blondie, and Bryan Ferry is upon us again, in music, culture, and, especially, style

Jan 29, 2007

You knew that, sooner or later, there would be nostalgia for the jump-cut eighties, that moment when the REO Speedwagon slog of rock radio was eclipsed by a flock of the truly weird, many of them British and most extremely photogenic. These people didn't look like rock stars; they wore skinny ties and pointy shoes, did their hair all fluffy or spiky, played synthesizers as much as guitar. Championed by MTV, these voices of radical insurgency spread the frenetic aesthetic of the new wave from music video to prime-time TV, then to fashion, advertising, and filmmaking.

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Now new wave and other bits of eighties culture are seeping slyly back into the public awareness, haunting the blanded-out boy-pop present with distant echoes of flamboyant otherness. There's evidence of it in the mullet cuts featured in those Gucci ads. In the return of Blondie and of the punk manqués on fashion runways. In peg-leg pants and glittery suits in bold colors. In the DJs embracing eighties sounds and using vintage gear to get them. In the resurgence of interest in painting and the prospecting going on in the contemporary-art market. In the worship of money and in the phrase "sudden-wealth syndrome."

Give thanks that the eighties haven't come back as a single Billy Idol sneer. Because what remains interesting about the period is its diversity: This moment in pop culture was category resistant and summary defying. The term "new wave" applied to Cyndi Lauper and Einstürzende Neubauten and Spandau Ballet, and as it went along, expressions from the threatening fringes--downtown jazz, graffiti art, lugubrious Goth balladry, hip-hop--found their way into the upheaval. It was the end of the reign of the three networks, the beginning of the splintering of the music-buying audience into highly specialized tribes whose vitality influenced the mainstream. Suddenly pop was poked and prodded by the overtly sexual (Prince, Madonna) and the archly intellectual (Talking Heads), artists who served as a counterbalance to the suffocating, inescapable bigness of Michael Jackson and Dynasty.

These days, eighties worship is everywhere--what is Oasis if not Journey meets the Beatles, with a nasty hangover? Isn't the basic Limp Bizkit formula just the hair-metal histrionics of Poison set to an urban beat? As for the artists on these pages, they didn't just wear the clothes. They've all grappled with the profound changes this era brought: The vets, there when MTV's switch was thrown and music became a visual commodity, were forced to develop images (brands, really) that extended far beyond mere sound; those who continue to make music are constantly having to prove that artists from the new-wave era can, in fact, have long-term careers. The newcomers, meanwhile, have had to establish themselves in an environment of image overload. Connected more by spirit than by sound, these misfit outcasts bring a taste for the outlandish and the urge to chip away at the status quo, and their ideals are reemerging right on time--to provide an alternative to the stifling uniformity of complacent teen-pop, to revive the quaint notion that music should dazzle, rattle, and stun.

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DAVID BYRNE

Walking around in a suit six sizes too big, muttering profundities like "Same as it ever was," David Byrne, the lead singer and conceptualist of Talking Heads, became an unlikely figurehead--the urban specimen knotted up with anxious rhythm, coming apart at the seams, nearly overwhelmed by the genius blend of chinking guitars and chopping beats behind him. Byrne stripped away the froth of the new wave and sought to expose its limitations: Who else could make Al Green's "Take Me to the River" signify deep respect for funk and at the same time convey the profound inadequacy of being a white man singing it? Using gawkishness as both wedge and shield, Byrne rode that arch deadpan right into iconhood. Since hanging up the big suit, Byrne has issued world-music-tinged solo albums (another is on the way this year) and, through his Luaka Bop label, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, has brought to our attention some of the most fiery and quirky world music available. Cotton suit ($1,270) by Moschino; cotton shirt ($155) by Comme des Garçons Shirt; leather shoes ($413) by Dolce & Gabbana.

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BLONDIE

The first concrete clue that an eighties consciousness was buzzing around again came when Blondie, the New York quartet that had been at the forefront of punk in 1977 and a catalyst for new wave, reunited in 1998. To the band's credit, it didn't attempt a quick-and-dirty greatest-hits-style comeback. Instead, guitarist Chris Stein and singer Debbie Harry, whose post-Blondie years had been marked by acting roles (Hairspray, Cop Land) and cameo appearances on unusual albums, wrote a batch of songs that, though new, still echoed the hits. Stein says that this was the conscious plan behind No Exit: "We'd been offered to do reunions before, and people seemed to want the greatest hits. For us to be interested, we had to have new material." He adds that the band, which is working on another new record, will move even further from greatest-hits territory: "The next record is going to have to be a lot less referential, not look back as much to the old styles." What was the most shocking thing Blondie encountered when it returned? In the old days, Stein groans, "there was more of a distinction between the hip world and the unhip world. Now everybody is hip. Everybody runs around wearing black now." From left, on Jimmy Destri: Leather coat ($3,675) by Versace; cotton shirt ($131) by Helmut Lang. On Clem Burke: Leather blazer (made to order) by Tommy Hilfiger Collection; silk turtleneck ($516) by Dolce & Gabbana; wool trousers ($440) by Helmut Lang; leather shoes ($270) by Miu Miu. On Debbie Harry: Shirt and skirt by Jean Paul Gaultier. On Chris Stein: Leather jacket ($1,250) by Ruffo; wool trousers ($285) by Agnès b. Homme; leather shoes ($270) by Miu Miu.

STEPHIN MERRITT

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What Stephin Merritt, the auteur whose three-disc opus 69 Love Songs put the Magnetic Fields at the top of the critics' polls in 1999, loved about the eighties: "Thanks largely to Boy George, anyone of any gender could wear anything. There was a sense in nightclub culture of gender being redefined." As for music, Merritt remains enthralled by the synthesizers that were ubiquitous early in the decade. He used what he describes as a "roomful" of vintage gear to record several of the mopey eighties-minded selections on 69 Love Songs, and he returned to it for his current project, a Human League tribute album that features his rendition of "Don't You Want Me" with (what else?) the genders reversed. "The sound of music then was futuristic," Merritt says, with the wistful air of one who remains enchanted while knowing he can't go back. "People thought of synthesizers as ultramodern. Every time you turned on the radio, you heard a sound you'd never heard before." Leather jacket ($1,450) by Ruffo Research; jeans by Anna Sui.

EVER CLEAR

Art Alexakis of Everclear is convinced that most people didn't live through the same eighties that he did. Now thirty-eight, he grew up in L.-A., following X and dressing like its singer-guitarist, John Doe: "Blue jeans, T-shirt, bad attitude," Alexakis says. "You just saw bad haircuts constantly, and parachute pants, and this awful level of preening." Currently mixing the first of two Everclear projects dropping this year--a pop album called Songs from an American Movie, Vol 1/Learning How to Smile, due this summer, and what he describes as a more "rocking" album that will follow it by several months--Alexakis doesn't pause long when asked what he misses most about the eighties: the energy. "What started out really cool in the eighties just got fucked up so quick. The anger and rawness of that postpunk stuff was great. And then it changed--I think people were trying to make it palatable for the masses." From left, on Craig Montoya: Silk shirt ($719), leather pants ($1,002), and python-skin sneakers ($476) by Dolce & Gabbana. On Art Alexakis: Wool suit ($1,449) and silk turtleneck ($516) by Dolce & Gabbana; leather shoes ($270) by Miu Miu. On Greg Eklund: Leather jacket ($1,617) and silk turtleneck ($516) by Dolce & Gabbana; cotton trousers ($485) by Yohji Yamamoto pour Homme.

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SHIRLEY MANSON

Any old pinup can wear a gravity-defying gown to the Grammys. It takes a certain spirit to arrive as Shirley Manson did this year: tartan skirt, anklets, blocky heels--the whole British schoolgirl uniform. Manson, the lead singer and provocateur of Garbage, learned the lessons Madonna taught wayward girls in the eighties extremely well. She uses her sexuality like a born tease--no matter how ready she looks, that poised, willowy voice somehow never makes it all the way to a direct come-on. And like latter-day Madonna, Manson has learned to say more with less. Though she stomped her way through Garbage's first single, "Only Happy When It Rains," by the second, "Stupid Girl," she'd developed a pouty, more restrained approach. And on Version 2.0, she found a persona that was equal parts postpunk brat and coy techno chanteuse, and this transformed her phrases from overt declarations into an intoxicating shorthand of sighs and implications. Manson and her boys, Butch Vig, Duke Erikson, and Steve Marker, are working on a follow-up. Her shirtdress by Versace; fishnet tights by Prada.

STEREO PHONICS

The trouble with much latter-day Britpop: It's too squishy, too pristine, overweeningly melodic. The South Wales trio known as Stereophonics is out to change that. Led by singer-songwriter Kelly Jones, the group has a pure rock background and seems most at home grinding out unkempt, rowdy, Ramones-ish barroom rock. What redeems it is Jones's knack for storytelling (his ode to an aging stripper in a small town, "She Takes Her Clothes Off," is shot through with understated melancholy) and his surly delivery, which tracks the right amount of mud over the pretty moments. Though the album was massive in the U.-K., the group is still trying to develop a U. S. audience; it plans to spend much of the year on the road. From left, on Richard Jones: Nylon parachute shirt ($220), cotton jersey trousers ($570), and leather foulard with grommets ($310) by Prada. On Kelly Jones: Leather jacket ($1,990) by Prada. On Stuart Cable: Suede jacket ($1,660) and polyester mesh trousers ($320) by Prada.

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DICKY BARRETT

"In the eighties, we wielded the word yuppie with as much venom as an earlier generation wielded the word hippie," says Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, which last month released its sixth effort, Pay Attention. "You felt it if there was a greedy bastard in the room. The band wasn't for him; he wasn't for us. You could say I was playing music because I wished I could beat up a jock or a yuppie." His band, formed in the early eighties, got its musical education at the now defunct Rathskeller, site of some of Boston's legendary punk shows: "I bellied up to that thing when I was seventeen, didn't walk away until four or five years ago," Barrett says, recalling important performances by Hüsker Dü, the Del Fuegos, and the Replacements. "It was a magical time, when the Replacements were coming to town, just on fire. They'd come in and you knew the show might happen and it might not, but you were gonna drink with them anyway. If they got onstage, it was a bonus. I should have been going to college then. I wasn't, but I got an education that far exceeds what I could have gotten in a classroom." Nylon bomber jacket ($300) by Raf Simons; cotton shirt ($135) by Helmut Lang; wool-and-elastin trousers ($420) by Versace; wool tie ($205) by Yohji Yamamoto pour Homme; leather shoes ($270) by Miu Miu.

BRYAN FERRY

At the precise moment the punk aesthetic was supplanted by a new fascination with style and sophistication, Bryan Ferry showed aspiring new-wavers the way. With Roxy Music, Ferry had spent most of the seventies remolding rock clichés into ornate art statements. His records presaged glam and taught a generation the virtues of minimalism. Roxy influenced everyone making music in the early eighties, and when it released Avalon in 1982, it expanded the definition of new wave by surrounding haunted melodies with open-plains textures. The terminally languid Ferry's last album, As Time Goes By, is a collection of standards excellently suited to his anguished-crooner persona, and he's at work on his first original material since 1994. Wool blazer ($1,445) and cotton shirt ($195) by Giorgio Armani.

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NORMAN COOK

If pop music has any institutional memory at all, it rests with the DJs--those keepers of the secret and the obscure, the ones who remember the B-sides even nerdy record-store clerks don't. Particularly those like Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, who has hopscotched from pop bands (the Housemartins) to eclectic dance collectives (Beats International) to an unlikely string of chart successes of his own--among them "The Rockafeller Skank" and the infectious "Praise You." Cook's background is his secret weapon--unlike most electronica stars, he's been involved in the writing and production of hits for years, and as a result he thinks in terms of form and architecture, the seamless flow of verse-to-chorus-to-hook. While some of his contemporaries are obsessive about certain eras, locking into subgenres like soul-jazz for all their grooves, Cook seems interested in everything, and therefore his music exudes an extraordinary openness. The current mix album On the Floor at the Boutique glances at P-Funk and abrasive punk guitar grinding and old-school New York hip-hop, yet it winds up sounding like a genius summation, not some kitchen-sink inventory. Cotton jeans ($195) by Paul Smith Red Ear; shirt his own.

SONIC YOUTH

Sonic Youth, who've inspired grunge pioneers Nirvana, pop-punk bands like Green Day, and grunge rockers Pearl Jam, never aligned completely with hardcore or with the steamrolling energy that defined punk and postpunk. Cofounder Kim Gordon says she and the rest of Sonic Youth never took too seriously those breathless accounts of how grunge was revolutionizing music: "It became just another thing for the industry to exploit, and when you look at where mainstream music is at now, that approach is just gone." Sonic Youth's new album, NYC Ghosts & Flowers, doesn't necessarily try to bring it back--Gordon describes it as "a little glam. It's all about the eighties." From left, on Lee Ranaldo: Cotton shirt ($130) by Helmut Lang; silk-and-cashmere vest ($185) by TSE Men; wool-and-mohair trousers ($235) by Agnès b. Homme; leather shoes ($165) by Johnston & Murphy. On Steve Shelley: Cotton shirt ($125) by Dries Van Noten; wool-and-mohair trousers ($285) by Agnès b. Homme. On Kim Gordon: Top by Helmut Lang. On Thurston Moore: Silk pants ($420) by Versace; leather shoes ($185) by Birkenstock.

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Joe HENRY-

For Joe Henry and other singer-songwriters with oddball notions about storytelling, much energy in the eighties was expended on branding and counterbranding, figuring out who you were not. "When there was such a thing as rock 'n' roll, somebody that had charisma and a touch, like Jerry Lee Lewis or Little Richard, could have made some hay with that. By the time the eighties came along, rock was dead enough, and it wasn't about finding talent with an exaggerated persona. It was, We'll just have to make some up." The result, Henry contends, was a parade of "deliberate creations who could never be seen out of uniform." Henry, whose recent projects include film scoring for Billy Bob Thornton's Wakin' Up in Reno and for the upcoming Jesus' Son, says he did his best to avoid those traps. "I took Bette Davis's advice: Be very careful about what you pretend to be." Silk-and-cotton suit ($1,950) and cotton stretch shirt ($290) by Prada; leather shoes ($270) by Miu Miu.

THE LOUNGE LIZARDS

There was a dizzy moment in the mid-eighties when those paying attention to art and music and youth culture collectively seized on lower Manhattan as the next source of profound ideas. Suddenly, artists who'd been working industriously underground were celebrated as wise sages, name-dropped by the more intelligent new-wave pop stars. Skronk guitar king Glenn Branca acquired his own cult. Laurie Anderson had hits. And the Lounge Lizards, put together by John Lurie, became a boho curiosity, gathering the best and brightest of the scene for delirious rituals in which jazz and lounge music were cheerfully deconstructed. The group, which at various times included guitarists Arto Lindsay and Marc Ribot and drummer Anton Fier, became a proving ground for musicians and is widely acknowledged as the cradle of the downtown jazz scene that clustered around the Knitting Factory in the early nineties. Lurie continues to use the same strategies: Under the nom de rock Marvin Pontiac, he recently released his first blues effort, which applies the nudge-wink irony associated with the Lizards to the anything-but-ironic music of John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. Just what we needed. From left, on Steven Bernstein: Silk suit ($1,980) and cotton shirt ($375) by Versace; leather shoes ($350) by Prada. On Clark Gayton: Cotton shirt ($195) and silk tie ($115) by Giorgio Armani; leather shoes ($115) by Bostonian. On Erik Sanko: Wool suit ($1,339) and cotton shirt ($204) by Dolce & Gabbana; leather shoes ($590) by Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche Homme. On John Lurie: Wool suit ($2,075) and cotton shirt ($195) by Giorgio Armani; leather shoes ($100) by Rockport. On Calvin Weston: Wool suit ($1,990) by Jean Paul Gaultier; leather shoes ($75) by Dexter. On Jane Scarpantoni: Clothes her own. On Michael Blake: Cotton suit ($1,675) and cotton shirt ($130) by Helmut Lang; leather shoes ($140) by Sebago.

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NICK CAVE

Somewhere in the middle of 1983, after the initial novelty of the new wave wore off, it became clear that its bubbling future-so-bright-speak was not telling the whole story, that a shortcoming of the music was its shallowness--emotional nuances were being glossed over, or completely ignored. Thus began a further splintering process--some new-wave bands, like Bauhaus, descended into a metallic torpor, others, like the Cure, moped incessantly in medium tempo, and Nick Cave, the former leader of the Birthday Party, found his voice in chilling, foreboding parlor songs of doomed love. Cave and his all-star band, the Bad Seeds, defined a literate approach to rock with the shadowy blues of 1984's From Her to Eternity and continued to expand throughout the decade, influencing scores of Goth auteurs with music whose outward calm masks the deeply unsettling tales within. Cave maintains a parallel career writing fiction and is at work on a new album with the Bad Seeds. Cotton shirt ($220) by Prada; suit his own.

JAY KAY

The lead singer and songwriter of Jamiroquai is that rare pop creature operating in several throwback modes simultaneously. His songs emulate the early-seventies idealism of Stevie Wonder. He exudes late-seventies disco tramp. And he sings like the long-lost half brother of Michael Jackson and Prince, whose inescapable hits in the early eighties (Thriller and Purple Rain) brought hints of glam and a sense of the fantastical to the pop mainstream. Like any good postmodernist, Kay scrambles these influences into something not instantly obvious. His account of a society living in the grip of post-technological alienation, "Virtual Insanity," is a harrowing, downright prescient cry for help from the far side of the digital divide. Wool suit ($1,920) and silk shirt ($670) by Tom Ford for Gucci; canvas-suede-and-nylon sneakers ($45) by Adidas U.K.; headdress (made to order) by World.